Australia's long-standing defense links with Singapore and Malaysia continue under the rubric of the Five Power Defense Arrangements (FPDA). This umbrella facilitates security cooperation between Malaysia and Singapore, and helps ameliorate differences between them. FPDA's most important component is the Integrated Air Defense System (IADS), commanded by a senior RAAF17 officer.
Australia's defense connections with Thailand and the Philippines date back to the 1954 Manila Treaty (which remains on the books.) Australia also brings to the table its December 1995 alignment with Indonesia, primus inter pares in ASEAN, and astride the maritime choke points.
The 1995 Agreement with Indonesia
The Agreement to Maintain Security (AMS) was a classic balance-against-threat response to Chinese strategic pressure in the South China Sea, although neither party shouted this from the rooftops. By gaining a strategic foothold in Burma, China is pressing on the Straits of Malacca from the west as well as the east. (China is also probing far out into the South Pacific, on Australia's eastern flank. 18 ) The AMS was prompted partly by Indonesia's realization that China's extensive territorial claims in the South China Sea could stretch as far south as the Natuna Islands. These islands guard the funnel to Java, and are the site of extensive gas fields. Previously, Indonesia had hosted workshops on the South China Sea in the belief that China had no claims to Indonesian territory.
By signing the AMS, Indonesia and Australia indicated that the security interests that united them were more important than the political issues that divided them (such as human fights and the issue of East Timor) or any notion of 'clash of civilizations'. The AMS represented a significant shift forward in Australia's ability to conduct an effective strategic policy-in one stroke overcoming outdated thinking in its military, which had in the past been too inclined to see Indonesia as a threat. 19
This was the first agreement that Australia had signed with a regional partner on the basis of reciprocal obligation. For his part, by aligning himself with a US ally, President Suharto took a risk in deviating from Indonesia's long-standing 'active and independent' foreign policy, even though this was an idea with long roots in Jakarta. 20 Suharto even announced the AMS at an ASEAN meeting, showing how little faith he placed in ASEAN ideas about 'common security'.
The AMS was a product of long-standing Australian defense connections with Indonesia, as well as personal contacts between then Australian (Labor) Prime Minister Paul Keating and President Suharto, forged in the context of furthering APEC. Keating did not, as some in Australia seem to think, see the AMS as an alternative to the US alliance; on the contrary, he saw them as complementary.
